Sony ZV-E10 is a vlogger’s dream
The Sony ZV-E10 is a dream come true for video loggers, and a Swiss Army knife for consumer oriented cameras.
The Sony ZV-E10 is a dream come true for video loggers, and a Swiss Army knife for consumer oriented cameras.
Boasting an effective 24.2-megapixel APS-C sensor along with Sony’s proprietary BIONZ X image processing engine, the camera promises excellent all-round capabilities in a very compact body. It targets creators involved with vlogging (video logging), social media influencing, YouTube and tutorial markets.
The camera comes in an all-metal body and is compact. Features are neatly marked to guide you to the various settings and menus. The 16-50mm, f3.5-f5.6 kit lens offers an effective aperture range of 24mm to 75mm. The menu system is simple and effective to follow.
This camera clearly targets the vlogger, content creators and general video shooters. The tripod wireless hand grip is a “must have option”. It connects to the camera using Bluetooth and lets you control recording, stills, background defocus and zoom adjustment. The tripod style legs fold away to provide a comfortable hand grip for videos.
The auto focus system is excellent and tracks the subject well even in low or dim light. Face eye detection is excellent regardless of the lighting conditions, and sound quality is acceptable. The subject can be tracked once autofocus locks on.
The camera’s product showcase mode switches focus to the subject and blurs the background. This is particularly useful for highlighting a product or feature within a product.
Battery power is fair. The camera can handle around 75-80 minutes of vlogging and video, and shooting more than 400 still images on a single charge. The camera can also be powered externally though its USB Type-C connector.
The environment can affect the recording of sound. If you are operating in areas with wind or background noise, you are better off pursuing an external microphone option, such as a Rode option.
The camera offers 24MP processing when taking stills. Like most pro shooters, I snap my stills as RAW images and convert them using Adobe Camera RAW in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Adobe has not yet released their RAW converter for this sensor and therefore I cannot evaluate RAW images.
Sony does supply a RAW image converter known as Image Edge Desktop, but it does not have anywhere near the capabilities of Adobe Camera RAW, Capture One or any of the other RAW converters on the market. I therefore chose to shoot in .jpeg format fine which makes use of the full 24MP sensor.
Image quality is fair, albeit a touch on the cold side in good light at medium aperture of, say, f8.0 and an ISO of 100. A slight increase in temperature in Lightroom produces a much more balanced colour in the images.
The weaknesses appear once you start to push the camera. Composing and tracking moving wildlife in harsh light is near impossible, as you simply cannot see the image on the monitor. The lack of an electronic view finder is a major drawback in these circumstances – the same would apply when shooting sport.
You can take panoramas with both standard and wide settings. You select the direction of camera movement that you wish, either left to right or vice versa, or vertically up or down. The camera fires a rapid number of shots until the standard or wide setting is reached, and the image is stitched in camera to produce the finished image.
The camera shoots reasonable general portraits and other shots, but there are other 24MP cameras in the market that give a better result.
For me personally, the lack of a viewfinder is a deal breaker with an interchangeable lens camera. For a camera with such excellent video, the image stills are disappointing.
But if vlogging and video content are your only or main consideration, this camera and range of Sony E mount lenses represents outstanding value.
Price: From $1,199 body only.
Pros: Video quality, autofocus, face and eye detection, excellent range of E mount lenses, zoom
Cons: Average quality image stills, no built-in flash, No EVF, making composing and tracking of subjects very difficult, clunky touch screen leaves much to be desired
Score: 6.5/10
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